[bake] how to bake something / Lute CANNOT cook for shit (on Earth, everything, every single little piece of meat, she would burn. It's part of her creation, unfortunately..) - she will literally follow the instructions to the letter, turn around for a 1 millisecond, turn back, and it's burnt to a crisp. Maybe Charlie can help?
TEACHING MOMENTS, accepting; @heuah.
❝ you want me to... ── uh, okay then! ❞
is how it starts. although well and truly the beginning began when the kitchen, flooded with smoke, coughing, and a very disgruntled Keekee waving around a tail lit with fire and ash, had numerous smoke shows without so much of a hair as to who was causing the great hotel of hazbin's flaming chaos. naturally, fingers were pointed to Charlie, and she took the blame on the chin the first few times. after the third, who could blame the princess for being a little less than cheery when she hadn't even been in the hotel that time at all!
through some sneaky endeavors that only the truest and wisest of detectives may have employed, simply put she'd walked in on Lute managing to mangle and inflame a box of screamslate batter, she unearthed the culprit framing her for arson.
naturally, their only recourse was for Charlie to assist Lute in this endeavor, lest another stained glass window gets blown out or worse yet, Keekee's poor tail and Alastor's spice rack! he was storing them less and less in the kitchen, not that Charlie could blame him for that but it was a crying shame! ── though, even she could argue to the strange set of circumstances that had them here, together, baking.
wasn't every day she was in close proximity to a supposed enemy ── past enemy? could Lute still be considered an enemy if she was staying at the hotel? ── and the two of them weren't tearing each other's throats out on the concrete floor outside. a testament to their shared will, or Charlie's burdening curiosity to see Lute underneath that iron grit and righteous piety. she wasn't entirely sure that Lute wouldn't quite literally stab her in the back when she turned around, but that's what trust exercises were for in their rawest form.
❝ i'm really... not the greatest at this myself, you never asked Emily...? ❞ weren't they close? was Lute really that solitary, that battle driven, that she'd never learned from a friend the simplicities of baking... if she even had friends. did she? with how cruel she was, did she even deserve to have friends in the first place? Charlie regards her with the slightest of side glances, a clean bowl tucked under her arm with the necessary items inside. whatever mess Lute had made before was for the dogs now, there was no salvaging that.
this was bound to be a disaster, but she was excellent at adapting! maybe with this, they could find a way to hate each other less. hate... what a terrible word, she wasn't sure she'd hate anyone. she hadn't hated Seviathan for everything he did to her, and her parents... her relationship with dad, her father, was just a little... rocky! that didn't mean hate, did it?
❝ oh── oh shit, fuck── ❞ she blows out the beginning kindle of flame on the edge of her suit jacket. how did that get there? ── FOCUS. this was her chance to prove herself to Lute, and maybe even prove something to herself! if they managed to get something out of today, she'd consider this a huge win!
❝ you know what, we've got this, you and me! let's, okay focus, how about if... you... ❞ she allows the word to drag out, regarding Lute with a squint and a purse of her lips. a woman so proficient in battle, to see such a mundane flaw was funny in a way devoid of malice. there had to be a middle ground here, and charlie'd find it; making up for the other's lack! they had just about everything necessary laid out, and hell, an impromptu shopping trip surely wouldn't go amiss if they needed to.
❝ if we... try cupcakes? and do a few batches, maybe we can figure out why you keep... burning... everything. my family has a recipe we can use, if we divide the work between us... it shouldn't be that hard! you know how to follow orders, recipes are sort of like that... in a sense── most of this isn't random guesswork, unlike cooking... as long as we take it slow── and i mean slow. don't huff at me when things aren't going as quick as you want them to. you DO know how to use a spatula, right? ❞
